Skeete Digital – Lisa Vandever Celebrates Kink With Her Film Festival

The Cinekink Film Festival was founded in 2003 by Lisa Vandever and has been growing ever since. “This is our eighth season,” she said during her recent visit to Las Vegas, which has been on the “tour” now for two years. Aimed at encouraging the positive depiction of sexuality and kink in film and television, Lisa got the idea for the event after moving from Oregon to the big apple where she began exploring her sexuality and trying to get scripts produced. It was at this point she became involved with the New York S&M Film Festival. “I was working with this group and they wanted to put together a film screening series,” she explained. The idea for Cinekink grew out of that as her interests broadened.

Once the festival was launched she began receiving emails from people in different parts of the country who couldn’t make it to New York and came up with the idea to package it so people could attend in other cities. “We take a 5-6 day festival in New York very February or March. That kicks off our season,” Lisa said. From that it is culled down to 2-3 day mini festivals or a one day Best of Cinekink Series depending upon the city. This year aside from the kick off in Las Vegas, she plans to bring the show to Chicago, Portland (in August), Seattle and DC with Boston and Miami still under consideration and LA a definite possibility this fall. Plus, there is a chance Cinekink may also take a trip to Berlin.

The festival accepts narrative fiction, documentary, shorts, experimental projects and yes, a little bit of porn. All of the submissions have an underlying theme about sexuality, however, Lisa said, “I mean it’s kind of like any film festival where it is quality films we’re looking for.” A well written story with engaging characters where people and humanity are shown in some kind of funny way is her favorite type of story.

Cinekink’s audience seems to have certain similarities in each city. For example, it is pretty evenly divided between men and women. Sexual orientation varies, however, with 10% being gay/lesbian, 50% bisexual and 30% straight. There are subtle changes Lisa has been observing though with more swinging and multiple partner type content coming out. “The big change I’m noticing is the quality of the pieces overall,” she stated. When they started the festival their production qualifications weren’t that high and in the beginning it was a scramble to put a program together. Now it seems that people with an interest in the subject matter have gone out and become better skilled at filmmaking. On the other hand, with the cost of equipment coming down they also receive more crappy films to wade through. According to Lisa, “The biggest challenge is getting the word out there and just getting people into their seats.”

Social media has made a major difference in marketing the festival leading to a record breaking run in New York this year, particularly using Twitter and Facebook. In fact, Lisa tried doing a little advertising on the later. It’s like throwing things at the wall and seeing what will stick especially with the age of the audience being mainly in the 30’s and maybe a little older than what some people might think.

Vandever offered these suggestions for anyone interested in submitting their projects. “First off send us your film,” she said. Open call for entries is in August. Next, she stated “Send us quality work.” In addition she added, “Film festivals appreciate filmmakers who are active in social media. Any festival appreciates a filmmaker that’s out there promoting their own work.” She does understand that this can be embarrassing for some adimitting that she’s better at promoting other people’s projects more than her own. “I think if you look at it as creating relationships with people it’s easier,” she related

The program itself varied with a group of films being shown one afternoon under the heading Adventures in the Skin Trade while night before shorts in the Love, Lust Life category including “Wiggle Room” from screenwriters/filmmakers Julie Keck and Jessica King, who are well known as @kingisafink on Twitter, were showcased. There was a also a filmmakers panel held discussing sex in the movies along with screenings of the feature “Indietro”, which won the Audience Choice Award for narrative feature in New York and the documentary “Kink Crusaders”. “The films that really do well with us and which people respond to you don’t necessarily find at the video store or online,” Lisa commented adding that it’s not typical porn, but rather really good stories with a little bit of sex in them that are difficult to find.

As for kicking off the road tour in Las Vegas, Lisa likes the location partly because it’s easy to get filmmakers to visit the city and like Cinekink it has a reputation for variety being willing to offer a little something for everybody regardless of their interests or orientation. She was also pleased about holding the festival at the new arthouse Theatre7. “I think that’s a very exciting addition to the film community in Las Vegas,” she concluded.